Hacker News Reader

Comment by eatonphil | Hacker News Reader

Hello! Happy to take questions.

What are your software book recommendations in general?

I often find that the material in the classics (programmatic programmer, mythical man-month, etc.) are so ubiquitous that I don't get much from actually reading them.

My only recommendation is Designing Data Intensive Applications.

I agree with you that most recommended books are so-so.

What was your process for starting the book club and gathering the first group of people to gather?

Mostly just posting on Twitter I think. LinkedIn, Discord, and my mailing list to a lesser degree.

I'd love to see examples of the actual groups as well as the "Intro email"?

Thanks! Really good read.

> the "Intro email"

Basically a condensed version of this blog post. :)

Tangentially related but what did you think about the second half of database internals?

I thought the second half was better than the first half! Alex Petrov was in the reading group that time. Funnily, if I recall correctly, he felt the first half was better, in part, because he wrote it last with more experience.

It's a good book though.

Interesting, I put the book down at the second half because I felt it went from extremely strong to somewhat weak. If he wrote the first part last then it makes a lot more sense. Might pick it up again after this.

Completely worth it for the first part already tho.

Is there anything you did that, in hindsight, seemed a bit too heavy-handed?

I have been lucky in not needing to moderate basically anything. I thought I'd have to do some moderation.

So, luckily, no I don't think so.

Is there any way to look over past discussions on the books?

You got any in-person NYC clubs planned for this Summer?

I want to but I also got stressed out considering it because of other stuff ([0, 1]) going on. In the meantime you can come to NYC Systems [0] or the NYC Systems Coffee Club [1]!

There's also Eric Zhang's NYC paper reading group [2] that seems cool but I've never been to.

[0] https://nycsystems.xyz

[1] https://eatonphil.com/nyc-systems-coffee-club.html

[2] https://notes.ekzhang.com/events/nysrg

Oh nice, I'll check out nyc systems. Thanks!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com